Swedish University Professor may get fired for saying men and women are biologically and anatomically different

Professor of Neurophysiology Germund Hesslow may no longer be allowed to teach a nature versus nurture course at Lund University’s medical programme in the south of Sweden

He’s been asked to apologise for lecturing about biological and anatomical differences between men and women. There is also a call for his replacement.

Some of the students, who identify as transgenders have been outraged by his lectures and argue that it violates the University’s core values and equality plan to suggest that the differences between men and women are not social constructs.

They are demanding an apology, and that Hesslow be replaced by a lecturer who tells the aspiring doctors about the patriarchal oppression against women and LGBT people instead.

In a letter to the management, a female student writes that Hesslow is “transfobic”, and that he by claiming the existence of biological gender differences has an “anti-feminist agenda”.

The letter was written on the basis of hearsay. The female student had not taken the course herself but was told about Hesslow’s alleged transphobia and anti-feminism by other students.

As a result, Hesslow was called up to the university management, and asked by the chairman, Christer Larsson, to distance himself from a number of wordings in his lecture.

In a letter to the management, Hesslow writes that he does not intend to apologise for his arguments. He claims that the way the university management acted in the matter lacks reasonable proportions, and that the school would have to close down if that much importance would be attached to each student who has an opinion on this or that argument in the lectures. “This is a behaviour that should not be encouraged and normalised,” he writes.

He also rejects the accusations that he, instead of teaching, would carry out a “transfobic” or anti-feminist political agenda.

Furthermore, he writes that, to the extent that he has an “agenda”, it is in that case to defend science, which he believes should permeate all work at a university.

It is presently unknown if he will remain at Lund University and continue teaching his scientific course for medical students.